


Single Use Vouchers

by Fialleril



Category: Batman (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Gen, basically a buddy fic, canon is a lie and I do what I want, canon mishmash, no major warnings but please check the notes on each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 21:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/pseuds/Fialleril
Summary: In which Damian battles sharks, escapes a basement, is subjected to questionable art, and attempts to pick the perfect birthday gift. And also, somewhere along the way, finds himself with yet another self-appointed big brother.





	1. Good for One (1) Strategic Launch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jerseydevious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/gifts).

> For Jersey, who oh so innocently lit the spark that became this fic. It was supposed to be a short one shot, but of course, I remain a parody of myself.
> 
> Jersey is also entirely responsible for Wally's running gag of directional puns. (I do, however, claim full responsibility for the terrible pun that is "running gag.")

Damian still thought this was unnecessary.

Nightwing and Robin were more than capable of handling this situation on their own. They were not in need of any assistance, and certainly not from someone who so evidently believed that stealth was a personality flaw. If Grayson wished to spend time with his friends, he could do so out of uniform while engaged in more frivolous pursuits. There was no need to endanger an important mission for the sake of socializing.

Damian had informed Grayson of this fact, and Grayson had laughed in his face.

So now here they were, perched in the shadows atop the old DuPont building, awaiting the arrival of the Flash, who was late.

Not for the first time, Damian had cause to regret his father’s broken ankle. This was entirely Drake’s fault, and Damian was not going to forget it.

Time passed. Clouds drifted over the sickle moon, and then away. Down on the streets below, shadows moved. Damian tried and failed to restrain a sigh.

“Hey guys,” said a voice immediately to his left. “What’s up?”

Damian did not jump, or otherwise start in any way. This was because he was not startled. He was too well trained for that. Instead he turned slowly – for effect, of course – to face the man now standing next to him. “You must be West,” he said.

The Flash grinned at him. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m standing to the south of you,” he said.

Damian ground his teeth. He was not going to be baited, and certainly not by such a juvenile pun. “You’re late,” he said.

West chuckled, though at least he had enough sense to be quiet about it. “Good to meet you, too, Robin,” he said, before turning to Grayson and proffering a small portable viewscreen. “Cameras are all set, but this show’s not exactly looking like an Emmy contender yet.”

Grayson grinned. “Oh well, you know first seasons are always rough. Maybe it’ll pick up.”

He propped the viewer against the railing where they could all see it easily. Damian peered at it curiously in spite of himself. It was a split feed with views from eight different cameras. He grudgingly admitted, if only to himself, that West had done a passable job of covering every angle of approach to the warehouse below. Three of the cameras were trained on entrances not visible from the DuPont building. One of those entrances was a battered, half-broken window high enough on the wall that most people would require a ladder to reach it.

“So,” said West cheerfully. “How are things?”

Damian fought the urge to roll his eyes. He fought it and lost.

Beside him, Grayson laughed. “Oh, you know. Headed off a supervillain turf war in Bludhaven last week, lurking around warehouses in Gotham this week because Bruce went and broke his ankle trying to break up a fight between Tim and an angry opossum – don’t ask – and next week, who knows? Maybe I’ll even get some sleep in there.”

“Oh come on,” said West. “You can’t hint at a story like that and then leave me hanging!”

“Sure I can,” said Grayson, gesturing at the monitor. “We’ve got movement.”

Damian turned his gaze back to the screen. There were several figures approaching the warehouse. Most of them were likely just goons, but one was unmistakably the Penguin, and another appeared to be…a large turtle?

“Looks like we were right,” said West. It was the kind of thing Father might have said, but he would have done so with what Damian considered a grim and proper resignation. West sounded positively delighted. “I think we’ve got this year’s Weirdest Villain Team-Up in the bag, Dick.”

“You say that now,” Grayson sighed ruefully. “But we thought that last year about Grodd and Harley, and then Luthor teamed up with that sentient slime mold.”

“Man, I still don’t think that should even have counted,” West muttered sullenly.

“Can we please focus on the situation at hand?” Damian growled. “I did not come here tonight to socialize.”

“Robin – ” Grayson started to say, but to Damian’s surprise West cut him off with a laugh.

“All business, huh?” said the Flash. “Okay, Big Bird, what’s the plan?”

Grayson blinked. “Big Bird?”

“Well yeah,” said West. “Big Bird” – he gestured to Grayson, and then Damian – “and Little Bird. Thought it was obvious.”

“Cute,” said Grayson. Damian was rather dismayed to realize that he seemed to mean it.

“Yes,” he snapped. “It’s very cute. We could stand around here all night discussing it. Or perhaps we could actually apprehend the criminals gathering below.”

West laughed again, damn him. “The kid’s got the right idea,” he said.

Damian stiffened. “You will address me as ‘Robin’ or ‘Wayne,’ West,” he said.

West’s smile didn’t fade in the least. Damian was beginning to think it was a permanent, infuriating fixture of his face. “Still to your south,” he said, and then added with a wink, “Mr. Wayne.”

Damian turned on Grayson with a snarl. “I am not going to put up with this all night, Grayson. Do you have a plan or must I handle things myself?”

“Okay, okay,” Grayson said, raising his hands in surrender. “Give it a rest, please, Wally. We’ve got a job here.”

“Sure,” West said easily. Damian seethed.

“All right,” said Grayson. “It looks like all the marks are in now, so –”

“Switch the feed,” said West.

Grayson’s eyes widened, and then he grinned. “Inside too, huh?”

“Of course,” said West. He almost sounded affronted, and that was interesting, if only because it might mean he’d finally stop smiling. “Might be a little spotty, though. I had to guess on the configuration.”

His fingers flew across the monitor, and the view shifted to four camera feeds from the interior of the warehouse. One showed nothing but empty space, and two others offered only a distant view of the gathering taking shape, but the fourth was a passable angle. Flash pulled that one up, and they all leaned forward to watch it.

There was the Penguin, and the…turtle-man, and Damian counted seventeen goons, most of whom appeared to be Penguin’s men. And there was a large tank full of water to one side of their gathering. Something was swimming in the tank, several somethings in fact, but what they were Damian couldn’t guess.

“Oh man,” said West. “Please tell me those are sharks with lasers on their heads.”

Damian scoffed, but before he could comment further Grayson said, “Only one way to find out.”

The plan was fairly simple. They would slip in and break up the meeting. West would keep the goons, and possibly the turtle-man, occupied, while Grayson would capture the Penguin. Damian’s role was to secure the tank, and whatever it contained.

Of course it didn’t prove to be that easy.

The things in the tank were indeed sharks. But they did not have lasers on their heads. In hindsight, it might have been preferable if they had.

Damian had cause to reflect on this fact as he was hurtling through the air, grappling line in hand but tumbling too rapidly to make a successful throw. He was rather furious with himself. Grayson would probably say that he could hardly have expected the sharks to possess both human arms and catapults, but Damian was absolutely certain that Father would not have been caught off guard like this. _He _would have been prepared, and Damian had once more failed to reach that standard.

He was still arcing through the air, considering the possibility that at least he and Father could recuperate together, when something solid snatched him around the middle and suddenly he was traveling at an even greater rate of speed, but now in a much more controlled and, above all, stable trajectory.

“Did you just get yeeted by a shark?” asked West.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Damian grumbled.

“No problem, Little Bird,” said West. The hand not holding Damian formed a fist and connected with several jaws in rapid succession. “You got a knockout gas bomb anywhere in that bat-arsenal of yours?”

“Yes,” said Damian, frustrated that he could hear the surprise in his own voice.

West surprised him again by not commenting on it. “Okay,” he said. “Great. You see that guy next to the Penguin? The one with the face like a boxer who should have retired years ago but just doesn’t know when to quit?”

The analogy was unnecessarily colorful, but Damian had to admit it was an effective description. “Yes,” he said shortly.

“‘Kay,” said West. “If I launch you his way, can you get your grapple around that beam and hit him with a well-deserved rest on your way out?”

Damian sniffed. It was probably not worth it to comment on West’s absurd use of idioms. “Certainly,” he said. “Provided you can ‘launch me’ without sending me tumbling.”

West laughed brightly. “Can do,” he said. “Get ready.”

Damian withdrew a grenade from his utility belt and prepped his grapple. West slowed, just enough that the world no longer seemed to be a blur, and the arm around Damian’s waist shifted, positioning him as though for a gymnastic launch. He wondered if this was something West had done with Grayson before.

The idea was…not entirely insulting.

“Ready?” asked West.

“Yes,” said Damian.

“Yeet!” West shouted, and Damian heard a delighted laugh as he was launched once more through the air. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. His grapple flew in a perfect arc, wrapping around the beam far above, and in the next moment he was dropping his grenade and swinging away.

There was a riot of coughing behind him, followed by the heavy sound of several large bodies hitting the ground. The thrashing sounds of the sharks in the tank also fell abruptly silent.

Damian turned to study their work. It wasn’t a terrible job. Sixteen of the Penguin’s goons were tied in three comatose bundles beside the main entrance to the warehouse. The Penguin himself and his largest henchman were lying cuffed and unconscious on the floor where Damian had dropped the knockout gas. The turtle-man had fallen beside the tank, while the sharks within it were looking vaguely confused by the growths emerging from their fellows’ backs.

Damian kept a wide berth from the tank as he edged toward Grayson and West where they crouched over the Penguin and his goon.

“Okay, Wally, I’ll bite,” Grayson was saying. “What just happened?”

“I yeeted your sidekick,” West said, grinning still. Damian watched him reach down and remove a thin metal band from around the goon’s head. He held it up for their inspection. “Also, I think we are _definitely _going to win the Weird Villain Team-Up contest this year, because we’ve got a three-way here. This is Grodd’s tech.”

“Damn it,” Grayson muttered. “Why is it always Grodd?”

“You’re telling me, buddy,” said West. “Sometimes I think his whole world domination schtick is just a cover and he’s actually in this solely to make my life more difficult.”

“A truly nefarious plan if I ever heard one,” Grayson said, nodding sagely. “Hey, Robin, you good? Wally says he tossed you.”

“Like a salad,” said West with a snicker.

“Hardly,” muttered Damian. “It was a strategic launch, and it enabled me to incapacitate our opponents. For which you are welcome, by the way.”

Grayson looked a bit startled by that comment, while West’s snickering only grew more irksome. “Hey, Big Bird, you didn’t tell me your little bro was a master of sarcasm,” he said.

Damian frowned, both at the reference to himself and the use of that horrible nickname for Grayson. The man was appallingly disrespectful. How did Grayson voluntarily put up with this?

But Grayson, of course, was entirely unconcerned, so Damian bit back his annoyance and focused on the matter at hand. “What is that thing you’ve got, West?”

West spun the device around one finger and grinned down at Damian. “Sorry, dude,” he said, “but I’m to your north now. Keep trying and I’m sure you’ll get it right, though.” When Damian growled, West only laughed and carried merrily on. “Anyway, this thing? It’s, uh…well, Grodd’s got some fancy and unnecessarily long technobabble name for it, but basically it’s a mind control device. Lets Mr. Congeniality here” – he nudged the goon’s unconscious body with his boot – “control the freaky mutant sharks. So really he’s the one who yeeted you. The sharks are the victims in all this.”

Damian glanced back at the waving limbs and wobbling catapults swimming about in the tank and grimaced. “I can see that,” he said.

West cackled. “You’re a riot, kid,” he said. “Definitely got your dad’s sense of humor.”

Damian, who had been prepared to respond with ire to the “kid” appellation, paused at that. It was…not an entirely unpleasant comment, perhaps.

“You can say that again,” Grayson said, shooting Damian a grin that was also…not entirely unpleasant. “Okay, guys, GCPD should be here soon to collect our friends. I’m gonna do a sweep for evidence, take a few samples. Wally, you taking that thing?” He gestured to the headband.

“Nah,” West said carelessly. “Got one just like it in the Flash Museum already. Which is probably a significant detail for your evidence pile, if you wanna come by and compare them sometime.”

“I’ll recommend that to the commissioner.”

“Sounds good,” said West. “I’m gonna book it, then. I know how you Bats are about your turf.” He winked. “Don’t wanna ruin your mystique or anything. Big Bird, you owe me lunch sometime. Don’t be a stranger. Little Bird…”

He paused then, apparently waiting for a response Damian refused to give. He would not dignify that nickname by answering to it.

West, however, didn’t seem deterred. He turned back to Grayson and said, “Got a piece of paper?”

Grayson sighed. “This is why you need a utility belt, Wally,” he said, handing over paper and pen.

“What, and risk the ire of the Big Bad Bat for daring to borrow his signature thing? I don’t think so.” West grinned. “Anyway, I don’t need to carry all that stuff around. That’s what I’ve got you for.” The matter apparently settled, he scrawled something in a blur across the paper and handed it to Damian.

Damian took it, more out of surprise than anything. It was…a phone number. “What is this, West?” he asked.

West’s grin seemed in danger of splitting his face. “It’s east now, dude,” he said. “And that’s my cell, just in case you need anything. Give me a ring if you ever need a pick up, or, you know, if you ever get sick of this guy” – he hooked a thumb in Grayson’s direction – “and want to put him in his place. I’m the world’s foremost expert on the pranking of your friendly neighborhood Nightwing, and my expertise is always available to any Robin who will use it wisely.”

“Hey!” said Grayson indignantly.

West laughed. “Later, guys,” he said, and then he was gone.

In his absence, the warehouse seemed strangely silent. The mournful swishing of the sharks echoed in the stillness.

“See,” said Grayson at length, “that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Damian scoffed. But, after some consideration, he also pocketed the number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What exactly happened with Tim and that opossum? The world may never know.


	2. Good for One (1) Get Out of Jail Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Damian is injured, Wally makes a door explode, and Bruce is a good dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a good deal less cracky than the first chapter. And Damian is injured pretty badly, though the description is pretty non-graphic.

Damian hadn’t ever expected to actually call West. In fact, he hadn’t even considered it a matter of last resort, and the only reason he had the number on him now was that he had entirely forgotten he’d secreted it in his utility belt in the first place.

But the fact was that he _did _have West’s number. And, at the moment, it appeared to be the best option he had.

There was no one to blame for that fact but himself. This knowledge did nothing to improve Damian’s mood.

His fingers slipped wetly over the piece of paper, and he paused to wipe them on the edge of his cape, leaving a dark streak behind. His crawl across the floor had restarted the flow of blood, in spite of his makeshift tourniquet, but he had his captor’s phone now and that was the important thing. The others were still absent, but might return at any time. He didn’t have the luxury of worrying about his injuries at the moment.

The phone was one of those ancient flip devices, with a number pad instead of a touchscreen, which was his first real stroke of luck today.

West picked up on the first ring. “Yello?” he said.

“West, this is Robin.”

“Ordinarily you’d have got me that time, Little Bird, but unfortunately for you I’m not home. I’m in China at the moment, so it’s definitely east.”

“West,” Damian bit out, “I don’t have time for this. I am…in need of some assistance.”

West’s laughter dried up instantly. “Okay, Robin, what’s up? Where are you? You injured?”

“Yes,” said Damian, inexplicably relieved and not quite willing to think about why. “I have several bruised ribs, a sprained wrist, and most likely a broken tibia.”

“How likely?”

Damian glanced down. “I can see the bone,” he said.

“Yeah, okay, that’s probably broken,” said West. To Damian’s surprise, the hint of laughter in his voice was…not entirely unwelcome. “Where are you? And who’s there with you?”

“I am…in a basement, I believe. A large one, so probably a commercial or public building of some kind, and not a private residence. There are no windows. There were…” His mind slipped, groping for a half-guessed image. He was very tired. That was probably not a good sign. “Five men, I think. Maybe six. Most of them left, and I don’t know when they will return. There was one guard remaining. I have incapacitated him.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “This is his phone.”

“Okay,” said West. “Good job, Robin. Are you still in Gotham?”

“I…believe so,” Damian said at last.

“Think you’ll be alert for the next couple minutes, at least?” West sounded a bit like Grayson when he was worrying unnecessarily. That was another thought Damian didn’t care to examine too closely.

“Of course,” he snapped, and West chuckled.

“Okay. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna go see Oracle, and she’s gonna trace your location. Once we have that, we’ll come get you, okay?”

“Understood,” said Damian.

“Okay. It’ll only take me a second to get to Oracle’s place, but we’re gonna lose this call because the satellites can’t keep up. So I need you to check something for me, okay? How’s the battery looking on that phone?”

Damian pulled the phone away from his ear and glanced down. “Forty-two percent,” he said.

“Okay, okay, that’s good. I’m gonna hang up and call you back on this line in about a second. Okay?”

“Yes,” said Damian, starting to feel a little annoyed. Yes, he was injured and likely suffering from blood loss, but he wasn’t an infant.

“‘Kay,” said West. “Talk to you in a sec.”

He hung up, and Damian adjusted his grip on the phone. Almost instantly, it rang again.

“Robin?”

“I’m here,” he said, allowing some of his annoyance to creep into his voice.

“Okay,” said West again. “Oracle’s tracing the call, and she’s gonna let Batman and Nightwing know what’s happening, too. They’ll get a medical team prepped. Right now, I’m gonna need you to tell me a little more about the layout of the basement you’re in. You’re still alone? Except for the guy you knocked out, of course.”

There was a little hint of humor in his voice at that, and Damian smiled in spite of himself. “Yes,” he said. “He should be out for a while yet. The others are –” He paused, and in the following silence, footsteps echoed somewhere above him. “The others are returning, I believe,” he whispered into the phone.

“How many entrances are there to this basement?” West asked. He sounded almost short for the first time Damian had ever heard.

“Only one that I can see. A door, with fifteen steps leading down.”

“Close to you?”

“No. The door is on the far side of the room from me.”

To his surprise, West gave a rueful laugh at that. “Probably for the best. It’s gonna explode.”

Damian blinked. “I don’t believe this situation requires anything quite so dramatic,” he said.

That drew a full-throated laugh. “Sorry, Robin. Kind of an unavoidable side effect. You’re far enough away to avoid shrapnel?”

Damian blinked again. The man was apparently serious. “Well…yes.”

“Good. Oracle’s got a lock on you now. I’m gonna leave the phone here with her. You stay on the line, okay?”

“Yes.”

There was a brief rush of sound, and then another voice said, “Robin.”

Damian sagged. Father was here now, and that meant everything would be all right. “Yes, Batman?”

“I have everything arranged,” said Father, which meant that Dr. Thompkins was standing by. That was something of a relief. “Will you need –”

Whatever he had intended to ask was cut short as the basement door exploded.

Damian had a brief millisecond to reflect that West really had not been kidding, and then the man himself was bent over him, doing a surprisingly credible impression of Grayson’s mother hen look despite the fact that most of his face was covered by a mask.

It occurred to Damian that he was, perhaps, starting to be a bit delirious from blood loss.

“Flash?” said Father’s voice at something of a distance. Damian glanced down and found that his right hand, still holding the phone, had slipped away from his ear and was now resting on the ground beside him. Oh.

“I’m here, Bats,” West said. “Robin’s looking a little woozy but he’s awake. Definitely gonna need some blood, though. He’s got a makeshift tourniquet that’s holding all right, so I’m gonna make a dash for it. We’ll be there in a few. Also, might want to send somebody out here. There’s seven guys knocked out upstairs, and the one down here that Robin did a number on.”

“Understood,” said Father. And then, “Be careful, Flash.”

The line went dead. West gathered Damian up cautiously in his arms and gave a low whistle. “Damn, kid, you’ve really got him worried. Got me pretty worried, too, if we’re being honest.”

Damian managed a faint scoff. “That’s because you’re hopelessly soft, West,” he said.

West grinned. “And don’t you forget it,” he said. But he must really have been concerned, because he didn’t offer any directionally related pun this time. “Ready to run?”

“Yes,” said Damian, struggling to keep his eyes open. West was very warm and Damian’s leg was throbbing. “I think I have seen more than enough of this basement.”

“Right. Let’s get outta here.”

Damian blinked once, and they were gone.

*

He woke some time later. He was not sure how much later. But he was in a comfortable bed now, in a room with windows, in the Manor, and the sun was shining through the curtains. His leg was very firmly immobilized, and his wrist was bound, but he didn’t feel any pain, which must mean the IVs were doing their jobs.

He moved his head minutely, taking in his surroundings to either side. A few feet to his left was a wheeled cot, and Father was stretched out on it, sleeping fitfully. Just to the right of Damian’s bed, Grayson was perched in an antique desk chair, watching Damian with a faintly worried smile.

“Richard,” he said, soft enough that he wouldn’t wake Father. “What time is it?”

Grayson’s smile bloomed as it always did when Damian called him by his given name, but he thankfully didn’t comment on it. “Just about 4:00 in the afternoon,” he said, voice as hushed as Damian’s had been. “You’ve been out for quite a while.”

“Father is asleep?” It was an absurd question with an obvious answer, but he wasn’t sure how else to get at what he truly wished to know.

Luckily, Grayson was in a cooperative mood today, and he answered Damian’s real question without pressing. “He hasn’t left since Wally brought you here. I finally convinced him to get some rest, but he’d only agree if Alfred brought the cot in here and I promised to wake him if you woke up.”

He stood, apparently to do just that, and Damian snatched at his arm before he could think better of it. Grayson looked back at him, startled.

Damian turned away. He chewed his lip. He did not particularly want to ask this question, but it was one that needed an answer, and Grayson was perhaps his least humiliating option for obtaining that answer.

“I suppose Father will not be permitting me to patrol on my own again,” he said at last, stiffly. He still refused to look Grayson in the eye.

“Well, he _was_ worried,” Grayson said slowly. He withdrew his arm from Damian’s grip and sank back into his chair. “I was, too. But… You did good out there, Damian. You kept a clear head and you assessed the situation and made a good call.”

Damian snorted. “Hardly,” he said. “If I had made a proper assessment of the situation, I would not have been captured or injured in the first place.”

“Maybe,” said Grayson lightly. “But we’ve all made mistakes like that. Yes, even Bruce. I’m more impressed by how well you dealt with the fallout.” He was silent a moment, then reached out to squeeze Damian’s shoulder, just once. “What made you decide to call Wally?”

Damian considered the question. Mostly, he considered the careful tone Grayson had asked it in. But he also considered the very subtle change in the pattern of his father’s breathing. Then he answered just as carefully.

“I was injured and – and disoriented.” That was hard to admit, but it was the truth, and it would serve no purpose to deny it. “I knew that I could not extract myself from the situation. I also knew that I would likely not remain coherent for long, and I could not be certain when my captors would return or what their next move would be. I knew that if I called you or Father, you would be able to trace my location and come for me, but I also knew that it would take time, perhaps more time than I could allow.” He shrugged, but surrounded by bedsheets and monitors, the motion did not come across as casually as he might have hoped. “I decided that speed was of the essence, and so I called the Flash.”

Grayson chuckled, just a little, but it was a relief all the same. “Well when you put it like that… But I thought you didn’t like him?”

“That is immaterial,” Damian muttered, a little sullenly. He shifted, trying without success to find a more comfortable position, and finally gave it up. He should have left it at that, but something about the quiet and Grayson’s curious gaze compelled him to add, “West is…tolerable. Almost. I suppose.”

Grayson laughed at that. “Tolerable, huh? Wow, I just might have some competition.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Damian, and in the moment after realized exactly what he had said.

Grayson was grinning at him with the kind of absurd delight that usually preceded an embarrassing display of emotion. Damian decided it was best to head this off before he suffered any further indignity.

He also just wanted to get this over with. Better to know the consequences and deal with them, rather than to stew in uncertainty.

“What do you think, Father?” he asked, without looking away from Grayson.

He was awarded with Grayson’s sheepish smile, an acknowledgement that Damian had seen through his rather poor attempt at distraction.

“I think that you should have known better than to engage eight opponents alone,” Father said. His voice was carefully inflectionless, and Damian hid a wince. “However, Dick is right that you handled the aftermath well. And I assume that you will call for backup before rushing into such a situation next time?”

Damian looked up sharply at that. Father was sitting up in bed, watching him with the faintest of smiles.

“Next time?”

“Next time,” said Father. “Provided you can promise that you _will _call for backup. Even if you don’t think you’ll need it.”

Damian frowned at that. “_You _don’t call for backup,” he sniffed.

“Sometimes I do. And most of the time, I have you with me already.”

“Oh,” said Damian. A little bubble of warmth opened inside of him, but he would not allow himself to dwell on it, not with Grayson here and watching him so closely. “Well. I suppose I can make that promise, then. But only if _you _promise not to let Drake engage in combat with any more marsupials.”

Grayson laughed at that, and even Father chuckled a bit. “I think I can happily promise that,” he said.

“Okay,” Grayson said, still laughing a little. “Now that you two are up, I’m gonna call Wally.”

“Why?” Damian frowned. Grayson had claimed to be concerned for him, and now that Damian was awake, he wanted to go and socialize? Not that he’d had reason to be concerned, of course, and Damian would be glad enough to be free of his self-appointed overprotective brother, but even so. There was a principle here.

Grayson appeared oblivious to this fact as he shot Damian a smile. “Well, he was worried about you. I promised to let him know when you woke up. Also, he wants to sign your cast.”

Damian blinked. This was…not what he had anticipated.

“I suppose that would be acceptable,” he said at last. “Provided he doesn’t draw something juvenile.”

Grayson laughed. “Oh, he definitely will. You might as well get used to it. He’s decided he likes you, and that means you’ll never be rid of him.”

Damian considered this. The prospect was…distasteful, of course. Certainly not something to be pleased about. But he could endure it, he supposed. He’d survived worse things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Dick, you'll always be Damian's favorite.
> 
> I think Wally can technically prevent himself from causing explosions when he vibrates through things, but it takes a good deal of focus on his part and that's hard to come by when your best bro's baby bro is bleeding on the other side of the door.
> 
> (Besides, "I can phase through solid objects but they explode when I do" is peak physical comedy.)


	3. Good for One (1) Original Masterpiece

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Damian suffers the mortifying indignity of being cared for, Alfred is a traitor, and Wally has exciting news.

Damian had never really understood the point of signing casts. The practice served no purpose for healing, and although several of the others, most notably Grayson and Brown, had expressed the notion that it was “lucky,” none of them seemed to place any real belief in that luck. Father had said that signing a cast was just something people did, and this explanation was probably the best one that Damian had received, despite not actually being an explanation at all.

Nevertheless, they had all insisted on signing his cast. Even Cain. Even _Todd_.

Cain and Drake had at least limited themselves to simple signatures, although he suspected Drake had only done so because he knew Damian blamed him for the entire situation. Brown had also signed her name, but it was accompanied by a truly unnecessary number of cartoonish hearts and flowers. Gordon had inscribed his cast with a passage from _The Art of War_, the only truly tolerable offering any of them had made. But Todd had thoroughly ruined it with an absurd drawing of a small songbird proclaiming, “I am a mighty warrior, fear me!” The bird was wearing a mask quite similar to Damian’s over its eyes, and it was scowling in a pronounced way which was entirely unnatural to birds.

Worst of all, Grayson had written “Get well soon!” in dreadfully cheerful, looping penmanship, _and _he had signed his message simply with “Richard.”

There was no one with any sense in this house. Father had nodded in agreement when he offered that observation, and then gestured to his own cast, which was also covered in scribblings and inane messages. “If I have to put up with it, so do you,” he’d said, and proceeded to draw a large smiley face just below Damian’s knee.

Damian thought he had suffered all of these indignities with remarkable patience, so it was really quite unfair that he now had to put up with West, too.

The man had blown into the Manor only a few minutes ago, and already everything had been turned on its head.

Pennyworth had _let him in_. Voluntarily. West had arrived with a thermos of soup and a plastic container full of homemade cookies, announced himself at the door by saying, “Hey, Al, I brought some goodies for Little Bird, can I come in?” and Pennyworth, damn him, had not only allowed him entrance, but had brought him directly to Damian.

He was still standing there in the doorway of the study where Damian had sequestered himself, looking blandly smug in that way only Pennyworth could manage, while Grayson stood beside him grinning like a fool as West explained his offerings at unnecessary length.

“Brought you a proper speedster recovery package, Little Bird,” he said brightly. “Every time me and Uncle Barry got injured, Aunt Iris would make this incredible chicken and sweet potato soup, only Dick tells me you’re a vegetarian, so I modified the recipe a little and now it’s chickpea, lentil, and sweet potato, and I taste tested it before I came so you can be sure it’s delicious. Also, I know that Al here makes the best chocolate chip cookies on probably the whole planet, and I promise I’m not horning in on your turf, man, but a speedster recovery package just isn’t complete without cookies, so I made some snickerdoodles, because who doesn’t like snickerdoodles, right?” Here he finally paused for breath, looking just slightly worried. “You do like snickerdoodles, right?”

Truthfully Damian was not at all sure what a snickerdoodle was, although it certainly sounded like a word West would use. Perhaps he had coined it.

“Is there a purpose to this visit, West?” he asked, electing to sidestep the entire issue.

Absurdly, his question caused West to recover his smile. Damian could have kicked himself when he realized why, but of course, his leg was rather out of commission at the moment.

“It’s northeast this time, Mr. Wayne,” West said with a wink. “And I already told you: I’m here to offer my aunt’s post-injury cure-all. And to sign your cast, of course. You’re not getting out of that.”

Damian glanced between Pennyworth and Grayson and then back to West with a sigh. “You do realize,” he said, “that soup and cookies have no efficacy whatsoever for healing broken bones.”

West frowned in a way that was somehow still a smile. “I’m gonna let that insult to my aunt’s cure-all pass, because you’re injured and grumpy, but I guarantee you’ll be changing your tune once you’ve tried this.”

“I’ll fetch a tray, sir,” said Pennyworth, the traitor.

“Thanks Al!” West chirped. He set the thermos on the table beside Damian’s chair and proffered the now open package of cookies.

Damian peered at them, curious in spite of himself. They appeared to be some sort of spiced sugar cookie, and they did smell somewhat appetizing.

“If you don’t want those, I’ll definitely have them,” said Grayson, his eyes twinkling as though he _knew_ something.

Damian scowled at him. “Hands off my cookies, Grayson,” he snapped, selecting one and biting into it with some force.

There was a slight crunch to the outside of the cookie, but the inside was soft and still warm, and the spice balanced the sweet rather pleasantly.

“Well?” West asked, watching him eagerly and all but bouncing on his feet like an overexcited puppy.

“Tolerable,” said Damian shortly, and ate three more.

West beamed at him as though he’d received the most glowing of compliments, then, still bouncing a bit, he wheeled on Grayson and demanded, “You got a sharpie, man?”

“Of course,” Grayson said, handing one over, although his laughing eyes remained fixed on Damian.

West knelt down and made a show of examining Damian’s cast from several angles, looking over all the messages and occasionally humming or laughing to himself. “Bruce drew a smiley face?”

“It was revenge,” said Grayson. “Since we all signed his cast, too.”

“Huh. Well, you guys didn’t leave me much room to work with here,” West murmured, still studying Damian’s cast. “But I think I can manage a small masterpiece.” He tapped the capped sharpie against his chin and shot Damian an appraising glance. “Okay, Little Bird, you want something funny, something badass, or a little of both?”

“Oh, come on!” Grayson cut in. “He actually gets a choice? You didn’t give me a choice when we were kids!”

“I daresay you deserved what you got, Master Dick,” said Pennyworth, stepping into the study with a tray bearing a bowl, a spoon, and a mug of the spiced tea Damian preferred. He set about filling the bowl from West’s thermos while Grayson made a show of shock at this betrayal. “As I recall,” Pennyworth said, seemingly oblivious to Grayson’s dismay, “you broke your arm doing something rather foolish, which, I note, you had been repeatedly advised against. And I also recall that, following Master Wally’s…artistic endeavor, you did not attempt that particular feat again.”

West was sniggering quietly, twirling the sharpie until it became a dark blur. Grayson was looking decidedly sullen, and Damian, in spite of himself, had to admit to some curiosity.

“I wouldn’t have tried it again anyway,” Grayson grumbled, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Of course not, sir,” Pennyworth said drily. He settled the tray on Damian’s lap and pressed the spoon into his fingers.

Damian shot him a glare, but he also took a bite of the soup.

It was…really quite good, actually, hearty and warm and far more flavorful than he might have expected. He finished the bowl in short order, pointedly ignoring West’s smug look.

“You haven’t told me what you want yet, Mr. Wayne,” West said, still twirling the marker between his fingers and looking entirely too pleased with himself. “Badass, funny, or both?”

Damian fixed West with his best rendition of one of Father’s unimpressed stares. He was quite certain it was effective, because it had caused those three criminals to start babbling last month, and it had once terrified Commissioner Gordon into blessed silence for a whole minute.

West, however, only grinned more broadly. “Got it,” he said. “Badass it is.” He turned his attention to the cast and, as there was clearly no escaping this indignity, Damian resolved to bear it with appropriate stoicism.

West devoted a surprisingly long time to his creative endeavor, long enough that Damian had finished a second bowl of the soup and three more cookies, and Pennyworth had departed for the kitchens with his tray. Damian was beginning to wonder if he would ever regain possession of his leg when Grayson let out a soft huff of laughter that startled West out of his perfectly focused concentration.

“You working on a masterpiece for MOMA down there or what, Wally?”

“Maybe I am,” West said with a waggle of his eyebrows. “You’re gonna wanna hang on to this one when you get this cast off, Mr. Wayne. Put it up on E-Bay or something. An original work by the Flash, right? Gotta be worth something.” He sat back on his heels, studying his work, before leaning in to add one final touch and then signing his name with a flourish.

Damian frowned. “We don’t do this work for monetary gain, West,” he snapped. “My father –”

“Yeah, yeah, save it, Draco Malfoy,” West laughed. But he looked a little annoyed, too, and he hadn’t made any terrible directional pun, despite the fact that he was standing to Damian’s north.

Grayson, too, was frowning, but at Damian rather than at West, which was ridiculous. Damian opened his mouth to say something – he wasn’t sure what, perhaps to question Grayson, perhaps to object to that absurd appellation – but West cut him off.

“We’re not all independently wealthy, you know,” he said with a shrug that Damian suspected was meant to appear casual, although it spectacularly failed in that goal. “Some of us have bills to pay and our kids’ college funds to think about.”

“Yes, well,” Damian began, but this time it was Grayson who cut him off.

“Wally? Is that just a throwaway line, or is Linda –”

Whatever annoyance West may have felt dissolved quite suddenly, replaced by a beaming, amazed smile. “Uh huh,” he said, nodding vigorously, his voice touched with a kind of awe that made Damian distantly uncomfortable for reasons he couldn’t entirely explain. “We just found out yesterday. Twins, can you believe it?”

He was rocking on his feet, smiling like he didn’t know how to stop. Then Grayson was grinning back, laughing and clapping West on the back and saying, “Congratulations, man!” and West was laughing too, and Damian decided it was best to write them both off entirely for the time being.

Instead, he bent to examine the supposed masterpiece West had drawn on his cast.

The image took up most of the right side of his cast, and it was centered almost exactly over the place where his bone had broken the skin. Damian considered that for a moment, wondering if West had done it on purpose or if he had simply made use of the largest amount of space remaining on the cast. But it would be impossible to answer that question without asking West himself, and he was not about to do that.

It was probably a coincidence, anyway.

The drawing depicted a figure in a formal suit with the eyes covered, though whether by a mask or sunglasses Damian couldn’t tell. It had a rose clenched between its teeth and was holding something that looked suspiciously like a Capri Sun in one hand, while the other was punching a shark in the jaw. The shark had human arms and appeared to be standing on its tail. The word “POW” was written in large block letters above the shark, while “Wayne. Mr. Wayne” was neatly printed above the figure’s head.

Damian stared at the drawing, trying to determine why, inexplicably, he did not completely hate it.

It was absurd to think that anyone would spend money for such a thing, of course, but perhaps…

West and Grayson were still crowing about whatever had them so excited, so Damian snuck another two cookies while their attention was diverted. He waited a moment longer, loudly crunching on a third cookie, before giving it up as a lost cause.

“_What _are you two babbling about?” he snapped.

West looked up and shot Damian a dazed but brilliant grin. “I’m gonna be a dad!” he gushed.

Damian blinked.

He wasn’t certain why this announcement unnerved him so. Certainly West seemed happy about the news, and it wasn’t as though it impacted Damian himself in any way. Grayson, too, seemed pleased for his friend. Damian knew that he ought to have been indifferent, but he couldn’t deny, at least not to himself, that he was…concerned.

“Oh,” he said.

He must not have sounded indifferent, because Grayson was frowning and looking worried in that way he did, and West’s beaming smile had slipped to something entirely too perceptive. Damian shifted in his chair but refused to look away.

“Damian –” Grayson began, in the halting tone that always meant he intended to have some kind of emotional heart-to-heart.

But West, mercifully, interrupted him. “Hey, that’s right,” he said cheerfully, “you haven’t met Linda yet. We should definitely fix that.”

Before Damian could ask what he meant, he’d pulled his phone from his back pocket and was proudly offering it for Damian’s inspection.

The woman in the photo was pretty, Damian supposed. She had warm, dark eyes, and she was smiling. The smile appeared genuine. West was in the photo, too, grinning as always, but there was something a bit softer about his smile here. They looked happy together. But Damian knew better than to trust too firmly in appearances.

“That’s my wife Linda,” West was saying, grinning like a fool. “Not to brag or anything, but she’s probably the most amazing person on the planet.”

Damian very much doubted that, but one glance at Grayson’s face told him it was probably best to keep those thoughts to himself.

“Congratulations,” he said, because that was the appropriate thing to say, wasn’t it? His voice sounded stiff even to his own ears, but at least he’d said the words.

West, strangely, laughed. “You look as terrified as I feel, Little Bird.”

Damian bristled. “Don’t be ridiculous, West. We’re hardly discussing anything frightening.”

“It’s north, Mr. Wayne,” West said. “And maybe _you _can say that, but man, ever since we found out I’ve just been swinging back and forth between feeling absolutely thrilled and completely terrified that I’m gonna ruin these kids’ lives, you know? I mean, what do I know about being a dad?”

“You’ll do fine, Wally,” Grayson said, nudging his shoulder and offering a reassuring smile. “Seriously. You’ve always been great with kids.”

“But what if –”

“He’s right,” Damian blurted. He wasn’t certain he’d actually meant to say that aloud, but he had, and now West and Grayson both were looking at him in surprise. He scowled and stared down at the drawing West had made on his cast, if only to have something else to look at. It seemed somehow even more ridiculous than before, and he very nearly smiled. “I don’t think you have any cause to worry.”

Grayson shot him a startled but grateful smile, which Damian gamely ignored. What he’d said was simple fact, after all. It wasn’t West he was concerned about.

“Oh,” said West softly. He sounded startled but undeniably pleased. “Well, uh. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Damian mumbled. He looked up with a glare. “And I really mean that.”

West caught Grayson’s eye and they both laughed. “My lips are sealed,” he promised. In spite of the laughter, Damian knew that he meant that, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want some of that soup now...
> 
> Did Wally decide to go with "badass and funny both" in spite of Damian's supposed request, or does he genuinely think his drawing is simply badass? The world may never know. Damian sure doesn't.
> 
> Damian has...issues around the entire concept of mothers, and, although of course he won't admit it, he's decided he likes Wally, so he is instantly suspicious of Linda. (Which is of course entirely unfounded, and he'll have a chance to learn that when he meets her in the next chapter.)


	4. Good for One (1) Weekend Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Damian meets Linda, gets a tour, helps cook dinner, and channels Draco Malfoy...for great justice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the very long delay... Have a super long chapter to make up for it?

“This is completely unnecessary,” Damian spat, glowering out at the blurred, indistinct world speeding by. “I am entirely capable of looking after myself, broken leg or no. I am not an infant in need of a minder.”

“Well that’s good,” West said brightly. “Because we haven’t baby-proofed the apartment yet.” His voice was perfectly audible in the strange silence of the rapidly passing world, as though they existed in some kind of sound-proofed bubble. Damian had been trying to ascertain the physics at work, but at this moment he would be forced to admit they were not at all clear.

“Don’t be purposely obtuse,” he grumbled. He nearly added a “West,” but restrained himself in time. He was in no mood to deal with inane puns.

“Obtuse?” West laughed. “Hey, I think I know that one – from high school geometry class, right? Isn’t that some kind of angle?”

Damian clenched his jaw in an attempt to hold his tongue, but this proved insufficient. “Grayson told me you have one of the most extensive rogues galleries of anyone in the Justice League,” he said. “I am certainly beginning to understand why.”

West only laughed again, seemingly delighted. “What can I say? Must be my magnetic personality.”

Damian was about to reply with something suitably scathing, but a sudden, stomach-plunging sensation of vertical movement stole his voice and his breath at once, and by the time he recovered them, they’d come to an abrupt stop. He blinked, and found that they were standing in front of an unremarkable door in a rather dingy hallway. At the other end of the hall, a fire escape was just visible as the door beneath the blinking red exit sign swung closed. He looked up at West incredulously. “Did you just –”

“Ran up the side of the building, yeah,” West said, as though this were an everyday occurrence. “Stairs are too slow, and trickier when you’ve got a passenger.”

Damian attempted to fix West with a coolly unimpressed gaze, but he rather suspected that his surprise was still all too obvious, and that knowledge rankled. West was too smug by half already. He certainly did not need any encouragement from Damian. Nevertheless, some morbid sense of curiosity he could not seem to resist made him ask, “And the elevator?”

“_Way _too slow,” West said, grinning as he set Damian carefully on the ground and handed him his crutches. “When it’s working. Which it’s not right now.” He glanced at the crutches and winced a bit. “Sorry. You’re probably gonna be stuck with the Flash elevator this weekend.”

“Surely the building’s owners are aware of the problem? Does it take that long to fix an elevator?”

West laughed again, but Damian was surprised to hear a hint of bitterness beneath the laughter that left an unpleasant knot in his gut. “Oh, they’re aware of it all right. They’re also aware that nobody in this building has the funds to make a complaint about accessibility that’ll actually go anywhere.”

Damian frowned, but West had already turned away from him and was jiggling his key in the door.

He swung it open with an unnecessary flourish and called out, “Lucy, I’m home!”

“Oh good,” a woman’s voice called back. “I was beginning to think I was missing a major news story downtown or something.”

“Aw, babe, I’d never do that to you,” West said, grinning as he stepped aside to hold the door for Damian. “Len promised me a quiet weekend, and you know he always keeps his promises. If anybody else tries anything, the Rogues will handle it.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Linda Park said as she stepped into the apartment’s tiny entryway. She moved to kiss West on the cheek, but he laughed and kissed her lips instead. It was a brief kiss, and they were both smiling when they pulled away. Damian suppressed the urge to squirm.

Instead he studied Park. She looked more like the image he’d seen on West’s phone than the woman he’d been watching on Keystone’s Channel 4 news program for the last two weeks. That woman wore the polished and carefully neutral persona of good news anchors everywhere, and Damian had to admit she did so admirably. But the Park before him now was far more individual, dressed casually and with a sly glint of humor in her eyes that reminded him, oddly, of Gordon. Yet she was obviously the same woman, in much the same way that his father was his father, with the mask or without.

That thought was so unexpected that Damian actually stumbled a bit, cursing himself for his clumsiness as his weight fell rather heavily on his right crutch.

Park and West both darted forward, presumably to catch him, but Damian righted himself and fended them off with a scowl.

West shot him a grin that was far too smugly knowing and gestured grandly at Park. “Mr. Wayne, Linda Park, finest reporter on television and terror of snake cultists everywhere.” Park snorted at that, but West had already moved on. “Linda, _Mr. _Damian Wayne, Esquire. Okay, now you two know each other, I kinda forgot the soy sauce and I’m pretty sure we’re out of chocolate chips, which would put a real damper on my breakfast plans, so back in a sec!”

The last several words seemed to blur together, and by the time Damian had worked out exactly what West had said, the man himself was long gone.

Park sighed fondly and offered Damian a smile. He didn’t return it.

She appeared undeterred. “Well,” she said. “He’ll be back in a few minutes, assuming no world-threatening events occur in the meantime. So…I can show you your room if you want?”

Damian hesitated. He glanced down at his bag where West had set it just inside the door, and then back to Park. A spark of understanding passed through her eyes and he cursed himself for being so obvious, but to his surprise she only smiled again.

“Or Wally can show you when he gets back. How about we wait in the living room, though? I don’t know about you, but my feet are killing me.”

He stared at her incredulously, and she laughed. “Don’t give me that look,” she said. “I spent almost ten hours in heels today and right now I think I could happily lounge on the couch for the rest of my life. By the way, what should I call you?”

Damian blinked. It had taken him only a handful of steps to reach the living room, which was a rather generous name for such a cramped space. Two small sofas nearly filled the room, and a coffee table took up the remaining space. Park, true to her word, was already lounging across one of the sofas, her bare feet propped on one armrest and her head on the other. She watched his slow progress with the crutches attentively, but she made no move to get up and flutter about him or otherwise attempt to be “helpful,” and his estimation of her shot up again. Brown and Grayson, in particular, had been incessantly helpful for the last two weeks, until Damian had begun seriously contemplating murder. He’d expected to have to deal with the same nonsense here, but perhaps this weekend’s exile would not be completely unbearable.

He sat stiffly on the unoccupied sofa and propped his crutches against the cushions, still puzzling over Park’s question. She was evidently as given to sudden shifts in conversation as West himself. He hadn’t anticipated that.

“What do you mean?” he said carefully.

“What name do you prefer?” she asked, watching him with an easy smile. “I mean, Wally has a million nicknames for you – he does that with all his friends – but nicknames can be pretty personal, and I don’t want to get it wrong.”

Damian stared at her. He felt certain that there was something in her description of West he should have been objecting to, but he was too startled by her question to really consider the rest. It was a relatively simple question, yes, but that did not mean it had a simple answer.

He was not sure if anyone had ever asked him how he preferred to be addressed before. Well, Grayson had asked him once if he would rather be called “Robin” or “Damian” when they were in uniform but alone, but that wasn’t really the same thing. Park’s question was much more general, and it was open-ended. He could tell her any name he liked. Any name he _preferred_. And she would use it. At least, that was her implication.

So what should he tell her? Only Father and Grayson were permitted to call him by his given name. But asking her to call him “Wayne” felt somehow awkward, although he remained frustratingly uncertain as to why that should be. And West’s many absurd nicknames were entirely out of the question. The final option was likely the most risky, but Park was clearly already aware of both of his identities, and while he was not happy about that fact, it would be pointless to pretend it was not the case.

“You may address me as Robin,” he said at last, watching her reaction closely and cataloguing every minute change in expression.

Her eyes creased at the corners when she smiled. “Robin, then,” she said. “You can call me Linda, or Park if you’d rather – I’m used to that at work, anyway. I wouldn’t recommend calling Wally by his last name, though, unless you enjoy terrible puns.”

Damian grimaced. “No,” he said. “I do not.”

Park laughed. “I see I’m warning you much too late,” she said. “You could try calling him ‘Flash’ instead, but honestly, the puns that go with _that _one are even worse.”

Damian could easily imagine that, and hated himself for it. Perhaps he’d have done better to spend the weekend with the Titans, after all. But that would have meant enduring Drake’s attempts to outdo Grayson at his most infuriatingly overprotective. Even West’s endless puns and Park’s strange friendliness were preferable to that.

Of course, remaining at the Manor would have been ideal, but Father had insisted that was not an option. Damian still thought his reasoning was flawed, but there was little he could do about that.

He glanced around the small room again, cataloguing the television, with some sort of gaming system attached, the small stack of mail on one corner of the coffee table, and the rather eclectic collection of books on the shelf in the far corner. That might bear further investigation. From his place on the sofa he could make out what looked like several medical textbooks, a couple dozen paperback novels, a large book creatively titled _Snakes_, a number of technical manuals whose contents he couldn’t guess from here, an assortment of nonfiction titles on a range of subjects from climate change to knitting to theoretical physics to a biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a souvenir book from the Louvre, and something called _The Truth About the Batman_. This last had Damian more than a little curious. He had thought that Father owned every book ever published about Batman (collecting them was one of Bruce Wayne’s harmless little hobbies – a mark of pride in his city, perhaps). But this one didn’t look familiar.

“You’re welcome to any of the books in our library, such as it is,” Park said, and Damian turned to find her smiling at him again. “And we have a few games, too, if you feel like going old school.” He raised an eyebrow, and she laughed. “We’ve got the Wii, or there’s Wally’s prized gen one PlayStation, if you really want the vintage experience.”

He was fairly certain they had at least one of every gaming system ever produced at the Manor, but Damian had never troubled himself with learning them. “I don’t generally waste my time on such frivolous pursuits,” he muttered, and then instantly regretted it. That was the kind of statement Grayson was constantly warning him against, especially when speaking with civilians, and Park, whatever else she might be, was certainly a civilian.

If she was startled by his statement, though, she didn’t show it. Instead she sat up on the sofa and cocked her head at him, watching him with the barest hint of a smirk. “Frivolous, huh? Then I guess you’re not familiar with the strategy game known as Mario Kart?”

Damian snorted. He was quite aware of that game: it was one of Brown and Drake’s favorites. It was certainly not a strategy game. “It’s a cartoon racing game,” he said, making no effort to hide his disdain.

Park shook her head in mock dismay. “Well, I’d have expected more insight from a Bat,” she said, holding his gaze and smiling all the while.

Damian ground his teeth. He knew he was being baited, but that did not make her technique any less effective, and that in turn only served to aggravate him further.

“All racing games are strategy games,” Park said. “You’ve got to be constantly aware of your opponents, anticipating their moves and predicating what they’ll anticipate from you. You’ve got to know when to boost your speed and when to act to slow them down, and when to play them off each other so they overlook you. Sometimes you even have to take a strategic loss, if it’ll set you up better for the next round. And if you play with the same people often enough, you all learn each other’s strategies, which makes for a greater challenge next time.”

She was still smiling at him, but it was more sincere than teasing now, and there was a knowing glint in her eyes that Damian didn’t think he liked at all. He shifted a bit on the sofa, then stopped himself with a scowl. “Where is West?” he snapped, glancing once more around the room as though the man might spontaneously appear at any moment. It was a possibility, after all. And West had been gone for a startlingly long time, for him.

Park laughed, but it was an easy, fond sort of laugh, and not directed at Damian. “He said something about chocolate chips, which means pancakes, so he probably went to Iowa.”

Damian replayed this statement mentally. It was no more intelligible the second time around.

“My parents have a farm in Iowa,” Park explained. “And my mom has a garden near the house, with these eight blueberry bushes that are her pride and joy. She spent ages acidifying the soil, tending and fertilizing these bushes and putting up bird netting every year so we don’t have to share any of the goodies.” She laughed, then offered an apologetic shrug when it became clear that Damian didn’t understand the joke. “Wally’s famous for his blueberry chocolate chip pancakes, and he likes to get the berries fresh from the source when he can. But, of course, he can’t very well swing by the farm without stopping to say hi, and that means Mom will feed him, and Dad will grill him for all kinds of updates, and he’ll probably make his escape around the time Dad starts in on mutual funds again. So we can expect him back with berries and leftovers sometime about…now.”

Her last word was punctuated by the sound of the apartment door swinging open.

“Mom says hi!” West called, passing through the living room in a blur of color. A rapid series of sounds followed from the direction of the kitchen, and then he’d appeared on the sofa beside Park, her feet now resting in his lap.

“Just Mom?” Park asked with a smirk.

West grimaced. “Mom says hi. Dad says he’s got some really interesting information about CDs to share with us. And not the fun music kind, either.”

“Aw, poor baby,” Park cooed. “However did you survive?”

“Oh sure, you laugh now,” West said, but he was grinning too, which rather spoiled his outraged act. “But they want us to come over next weekend. Mom wants to talk baby shower and name ideas, and Dad, of course, has some advice about investment funds. Also they said something about your Aunt Kim stopping by…”

Park visibly blanched, and this time West laughed at her, though he took pity on her soon enough. “Tragically,” he said, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to be very busy battling Captain Cold next weekend, which will of course mean that you’ll be busy with live coverage, so we’ll have to cancel.”

Damian tried to hold his tongue, he really did, but West appeared to be perfectly serious about his plans for next weekend, rather than simply testing out a plausible excuse, and that was so absurd that he just couldn’t let it go. “You schedule battles with your villains in advance?” He could hear the incredulity in his own voice, but he felt in this circumstance it was justified.

“Not villains,” said West cheerfully. “Rogues. There’s a difference. And anyway, we don’t exactly schedule it. It’s more that Len is just…predictable. He promised me this weekend off, since I told him we’d have a Bat in town and he’s got a healthy instinct for self-preservation. But of course he’ll tell everyone that he’s got better things to do this weekend, and so do the rest of the Rogues if they know what’s good for them. And they do, so it’ll be a quiet weekend. But Boomer will spend all week teasing him about how he’s going soft, so by next weekend you can bet Len’ll be all set to prove what a dastardly Rogue he is, and the rest of ‘em will be off the hook. So. Means a busy weekend for me.” He grinned, as though all of this were both perfectly logical and perfectly normal.

“And for me,” said Park, “because I get to cover it all. And help Wally practice his interview techniques, of course.” She leaned over the edge of her sofa toward Damian and cupped a hand around her mouth to whisper, “He needs all the help he can get.”

“I heard that,” West said with a scowl.

“You were meant to,” Park said archly. “Anyway, now you’re back, you can show Robin his room.”

West looked very briefly startled, although the expression passed too quickly for Damian to guess what precisely had caused it. He watched as West caught Park’s eye and a silent exchange of information passed between them.

“My feet were tired,” Park said finally, her words punctuated with a careless shrug. “Besides, I know how much you love playing tour guide.”

“Oh yeah, it’s the highlight of my week,” West said, grinning even as he rolled his eyes. He bent to peck her on the lips, then slid her feet out of his lap, stood, zipped out into the hall, and returned with Damian’s bag, all in the time it took Damian to blink.

“All right, Mr. Wayne, let’s give you the grand tour,” he said brightly. “You need any help with –”

Damian shot him a glare violent enough to silence even West, at least briefly. He gathered his crutches and pointedly stood on his own.

“Right,” said West, laughing a bit nervously. “You’ve probably been dealing with Dick’s non-stop mother henning for the last two weeks, huh?”

“That would be putting it mildly,” Damian grumbled. “I told you I do not need a minder.”

“So you did. Well, all right then. Follow me.”

The so-called grand tour did not take long, even accounting for Damian’s slower pace on the crutches. The apartment was quite small, and he’d already seen the living room. A short hallway branched off from it; the room that would be his for the weekend was the first door on the left. There was a bed, a dresser, a nightstand, and a small closet. West deposited Damian’s bag on the bed and offered a tentative smile.

“This is gonna be the babies’ room eventually, but for now we’ve still got a guest room, so you’re in luck. I’ll let you sort through your things, but if you want any help, just let me know, okay?” Damian nodded curtly at this, and West carried on with an easier grin. “Also, you totally didn’t hear this from me, because I absolutely have no idea about this myself, but it’s just possible that Dick might have accidentally left one of his sketchbooks here last time he stayed. ‘Course, I don’t even know that he _has _sketchbooks, because his art habit is definitely a very well-kept secret that’s in no way common knowledge among the Titans. I also don’t know that he hides it in the false bottom he installed in the top dresser drawer, because after all why would my best friend do something like that to my furniture without telling me about it first?” He followed this up with a wink while Damian stared.

It was the conventional wisdom among the superhero community that the Flash, while brilliant in his own way, was not particularly observant. Damian wondered how so many people who were otherwise quite observant themselves could have made such a catastrophic error. And then he wondered how much responsibility West himself bore for that widespread belief.

He wore his identity openly for the world to see. There was nothing secret about the Flash. He seemed able to laugh at nearly anything, and he was friends with everyone, even his Rogues, and it had taken Damian this long to see it, because it was a very different sort of mask than anyone in Gotham might have constructed.

He’d thought once that West was incapable of stealth, but that wasn’t really true, was it? He just came at it from a very different angle. The word _obtuse _flickered through Damian’s mind, and he grimaced at the thought. An obtuse angle was obvious, easily seen and measured, and perhaps that was the point. West’s garish red costume and constant, tasteless puns were unlikely ever to disappear into the shadows, but they were remarkably adept at attracting attention. Like a matador’s cape, Damian thought, eyes narrowing.

West smiled guilelessly down at him. “What?” he asked.

Damian was almost tempted to ask what West would do if he told Grayson how he’d come by the sketchbook, but doing so could only lead to aggravation. So instead he schooled his expression and asked, with an air of studied disinterest, “Is that everything you wished to show me?”

“Oh, I get it,” said West with an exaggerated conspiratorial wink. “You want to save the snooping for later. Plausible deniability, huh? Cool, cool. Okay then, on with the tour, and then we can eat!”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and stepped back into the hall, and Damian followed after him, scowling darkly all the while.

West carried merrily on as though the entire exchange about Grayson’s theoretical sketchbook had never happened. “Bathroom’s here, there’s only one, sorry,” he said with a quick, apologetic shrug. “Shower’s a walk-in, but the sink is pretty low and there’s a bunch of wash cloths for you, since I’m guessing you’re stuck with sponge baths for now?”

Reluctantly, Damian nodded, and was surprised when West moved on without making a joke.

“Okay,” he said. “If you need anything else just let me know. Linda usually showers in the morning and I’m all over the place but I take about two seconds anyway, so you probably won’t notice. Um, what else? Oh.” He waved toward the door at the end of the short hall. “Me and Linda are down there, if you need anything at night, or hey, you can always call if you want room service or something.” Damian glowered, and West laughed. “Yeah, just kidding. Okay, time for the most important room in the place: the kitchen!”

Damian followed West back down the short hall, through the small living room, and into the kitchen, where Park was setting an array of vegetables on the dining table. She was sipping from a green glass soda bottle, and she looked up to beam at West. “You got me Green River,” she said, raising the bottle in a toast.

“It was on sale,” said West in what was obviously intended to be a casual tone, but his smile was decidedly sheepish.

“Uh huh,” said Park. “And how many stores did you have to visit before you found a sale?”

“Uh…no comment?”

Park laughed and pecked him on the cheek. “Thanks, Wally,” she said with a happy little hum, and West smiled soppily down at her, and for a moment Damian wondered if they’d forgotten he was there.

Then West’s stomach grumbled loudly, and he looked up with a bright blush and mumbled, “Okay, time for dinner!”

There was a blur of motion and then stillness. Damian, still only half settled into one of the kitchen chairs, looked up and blinked at the assembled vegetables, cutting boards, and knives that had appeared on the table in front of him. A pot was now heating on the stove, with an enormous, still empty wok waiting on the hob beside it.

“You like stir fry, Robin?” Park asked, sliding into the seat opposite him and setting to work dicing carrots.

“Yes,” said Damian. He remembered a bit late that he was probably supposed to tack on a “thank you,” but West was already speaking.

“Cool. Okay, three all important questions for you, Little Bird. First: tofu, yes or no?”

No doubt the polite answer would be “yes,” but… “How do you intend to prepare it?” he asked instead.

Park offered a nod of sympathy. “You’ve survived white people tofu before, huh?” she said.

A snort of laughter escaped him before Damian could check it.

“Don’t worry,” Park said. “I taught him to make it right. The less said about his early attempts, the better, but thankfully he learns fast.”

“Come on, give me some credit,” West pouted. “I coulda been a lot worse. Coulda made you Gar’s tofu surprise.”

Park shuddered visibly, and West fixed Damian with a satisfied grin. “Anyway, Little Bird, you won’t find any flavorless tofu in this house. I was gonna sauté it ‘til it’s nice and crispy, with some soy sauce, sesame, chili, garlic, and green onions. Might toss some ginger in there, too, if you want. Sound good?”

“That would be acceptable,” said Damian.

“Awesome! Okay, question two: mushrooms, yes or no?”

That was a much easier question to answer. “Yes.”

“Definitely a mushroom fan, huh? Nice.” West’s hands blurred, and a moment later the wok on the stove was filled with strips of tofu and spices, the scent already beginning to fill the small kitchen. “Okay, and now for the question that destroys friendships…” He paused and struck a dramatic pose before asking, “Pineapple, yes or no?”

Damian frowned. “Pineapple?”

“Only if you want. But I’m thinking that sounds like a no?”

It was obvious they’d intended to include pineapple. It was equally obvious that West had not really been serious about the question of pineapple destroying friendships – the man was rarely serious about anything, and Damian was hardly concerned about something so absurdly trivial in any case. And yet he was, for reasons he didn’t care to examine too closely, reluctant to simply say no. Instead he found himself admitting, “I have not had stir fry with pineapple before. Pennyworth never cooks with it.”

West perked up at that. “Oh, hey, that’s right, Tim’s allergic, isn’t he? Well, if you’re feeling adventurous, now’s your chance. Dick likes it, if that’s any indication.”

Damian could feel his nose wrinkling. “Grayson also likes mayonnaise with fried sweet potatoes.”

“He’s got you there, Wally,” said Park. “That is pretty weird.”

“Well, I dunno,” West said, staring into the middle distance contemplatively. “Maybe if it was, like, that fancy rich people mayo with all the different flavors and the endless vowels…”

Damian stared at him blankly until Park caught his eye and mouthed “aioli.”

“No,” said Damian. “It’s Hellman’s Light.”

“Oh,” said West. “Yeah, okay, I can’t explain that. I mean, I won’t lie, I’d probably try it, but it doesn’t sound too promising. Unlike pineapple stir fry, which is amazing, if you’re willing to give it a go.” He winked at Damian.

“Very well,” said Damian with a sigh.

West let out an absurd whoop of joy before sliding a cutting board, a knife, and several heads of broccoli across the table to Damian, who raised an eyebrow in question.

“Dick says you’re good with a knife,” West said. By the time the last word had left his mouth, he’d cored and diced seven peppers, and was starting on a pile of onions. “We’re big believers in the family model of cooking here in the Park-West house.”

There was certainly plenty to object to in that statement, and Damian fully intended to do so, but before he could say anything West looked up, fixed him with a smirk, and said, “Do I look like a house elf to you, Draco Malfoy? Now get chopping.”

Park spluttered, looking torn between sympathy for Damian and laughter at his expense, while West just went on watching him with a raised brow of his own and an absolutely infuriating, smugly satisfied smile, and really, Damian thought, no one could reasonably blame him for what he did next. Any court in the land would recognize it as a moment of temporary insanity.

“A house elf? No.” He looked West up and down with slow disdain. “Red hair, hand-me-down clothes? You must be a Weasley.”

There was a moment of utter silence, and then West collapsed in a fit of giggles, tears leaking from his eyes as Park snickered, “He’s got you pegged, Wal.”

“Oh man,” West gasped, still wiping his eyes. “Oh man, I absolutely set myself up for that and you delivered like a _champ_. Fifty points to Slytherin, buddy, because that was solid gold. I knew you were a closet Potter fan.”

Damian scowled. “Grayson talks about it constantly,” he muttered. “And what makes you assume I’m a Slytherin?” His scowl deepened. Just because his mother and grandfather…

“Are you kidding?” West asked incredulously, cutting into his dark thoughts. “You’re like a mini version of your dad and he’s the most purely Slytherin person I’ve ever met.”

Damian blinked. “Oh,” he said. “But –”

“Man, don’t tell me you’ve bought into all that stuff about Slytherins always being bad guys,” West snorted. “Come on, that’s a lot of propaganda put out by people who think that any advanced planning is the mark of a supervillain.”

That was such an obvious set up for an insult that Damian decided, for the sake of his own dignity, to ignore it. Instead, he fixed West with a smirk and said, “And I suppose you’re a Gryffindor?”

West drew himself up in affront. “Okay, there’s no need to be insulting,” he said.

Nearly in the same breath, Park laughed and said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Robin, I’m the Gryffindor in this relationship. He’s obviously a Hufflepuff.”

“You’re damn right,” said West proudly. “And don’t think you’re getting out of chopping that broccoli, Mr. Malfoy. We Hufflepuffs are very serious about food and family, you know.” He winked and blurred, and then all of the vegetables, minus the broccoli, were sautéing in the wok on the stove, the tofu was plated and cooling on the counter, and Damian looked down to find his fingers wrapped around the handle of the knife. “Chop, chop,” West said, making a vague shooing motion in Damian’s direction before turning his attention to the stove.

Resigned, Damian examined the broccoli. There was quite a lot of it, and, truth be told, he wasn’t sure he had ever actually seen broccoli outside of a prepared dish before, but he was not about to admit that. At any rate he knew what it should look like when prepared, so the task was simple enough.

He sliced into the broccoli, and the knife stuck.

“It helps if you rock it back and forth, like this,” said Park, pulling a head of broccoli onto her own cutting board and demonstrating the technique. “Which Wally should have told you, really, but he’s a hopeless Hufflepuff and it’s probably never occurred to him that knives are used for anything other than cutting vegetables.” She rolled her eyes and shot Damian a sympathetic smile.

“Oh come on,” West said from the stove. “What else would you even use a knife for?”

He was laughing, and it was obvious he was playing along, so Damian bit back his first impulse to say, “There are at least thirteen different ways I could kill you right now.” West was almost certainly aware of that fact, and joking about it anyway, and Park…

“He’s a hopeless city boy,” she whispered to Damian. “Couldn’t gut a deer to save his life.”

His surprise must have been obvious, because she laughed brightly and added, “I grew up on a farm, remember?” Her smile softened. “Sorry, I know you’re a vegetarian.”

Damian waved her apology away. He was certainly aware that other people ate meat, and he was familiar himself with the principles of hunting, although he had never applied them to _animals_ before. Now was…probably not the best time to ponder that.

“Any time you wanna give me that broccoli would be great,” West said, making a show of tapping his wrist, despite the fact that he wasn’t wearing a watch.

Damian scowled but bent to his task. He rocked the knife, and it sliced through the broccoli easily.

Everything was ready soon enough, and in such vast quantities that Damian wondered aloud if they were expecting other guests. But West only smiled sheepishly before admitting that most of the food was for him.

He really hadn’t been kidding about that, either. There was still plenty for Damian and Park, but watching West eat was not something he was likely to forget anytime soon.

It was good, though. The food, yes – even the pineapple – but it wasn’t _just _the food. West had handed him a plate with an exaggerated bow and a “compliments to the chef,” even though Damian had done nothing more than cut a few heads of broccoli. Park had offered to send him home with her tofu recipe. There were snickerdoodle cookies for dessert.

Damian still didn’t understand why he had to be here. The basic facts were clear enough: Father was traveling and could not have taken Damian with him. Pennyworth had a weekend engagement that would keep him away from the Manor. Grayson was participating in a training exercise with the Bludhaven PD. All of the others were similarly unavailable. What Damian still did not understand, however, was why any of that was relevant. He was perfectly capable of looking after himself for a weekend. He did not need a bodyguard, and he certainly did not need a babysitter or a nursemaid. But Father had insisted, leaving no room for argument, and in the circumstances, West had seemed the least unpleasant option.

He considered this as he shifted in bed, trying and failing to find a more comfortable position for his leg. The mattress was old and rather springy, and much smaller than anything he was used to. There was a patterned quilt on the bed, done in shades of blue and green and cream and evidently produced by Park’s mother. It was startlingly soft.

Park had informed him over dinner, after West had dashed from the room to offer his services as a replacement elevator to Irene from the fifth floor, that they’d been looking forward to his visit all week. “Wally’s so excited,” she’d confided. “He was up and baking at 3:00 this morning.”

Damian stilled again, giving up on finding any position that would really suit his leg. He listened intently, but the only sounds in the apartment were the last echoes of the springs in his mattress and the faint hum of the refrigerator. He waited a few minutes more, breathing shallowly, just to be sure.

Then he slipped as quietly as possible out of bed and made his way to the dresser. This was not, in fact, terribly quiet, between the awkwardness of the crutches and the reality of navigating an unfamiliar space largely in the dark. Damian took his time crossing the small room, pausing frequently to listen for any sign that he’d been heard.

The topmost drawer of the dresser slid open soundlessly. It was a short dresser, fairly sturdy, and the false bottom was not at all evident to a casual inspection. In fact, Damian could admit, at least to himself, that he likely would not have found it if West hadn’t told him it was there. Grayson had done good work, it seemed.

Which did leave the question of how West himself had discovered it. But Damian was certain he would not get a straight answer to that, so it was unlikely to be worth asking.

There was a sketchbook in the drawer, just as West had claimed. There was also a single, rather misshapen sock, but Damian felt perfectly comfortable in ignoring that.

The sketchbook was fairly large, and getting it back to his bed while maneuvering the crutches was something of an undertaking, but he persevered, biting back a growl of frustration at the shortness of his breath. Getting himself and the book both situated, and his phone propped up at just the right angle so that the flashlight’s beam illuminated the pages without obscuring them, also took a good deal longer than he would have liked, and he was almost afraid to move once he’d managed it.

There was little in the book to surprise him. He was already quite aware of Grayson’s love of children’s cartoons, science fiction, and Shakespeare. It was not terribly surprising to discover that he sketched his favorite characters, nor that he evidently had a habit of drawing his friends as those characters.

There was a drawing of Roy Harper as Robin Hood – the Disney one, complete with fox ears and a tail. There was another of Father wearing the style of hat commonly associated with Sherlock Holmes, with Commissioner Gordon looking puzzled beside him, presumably fulfilling the role of Watson. There were a series of images featuring Cain, Brown, Drake, and Damian himself as Jedi knights, followed by several caricatures of West and Park as Han Solo and Princess Leia, most of which depicted Park looking heroically determined and brandishing a blaster while West swooned against her or looked on in adoration.

Damian actually had to bite back laughter when he reached the final sketch of the set and found that West had attached a sticky note beneath the image reading, “My next tattoo! Thanks, Dick!”

This was followed by a handful of drawings of Daffy Duck, Starfire wearing a shirt proclaiming “I want to believe,” Barbara Gordon looking contemplative accompanied by a thought bubble with a cartoonish picture of a milkshake, Pennyworth presenting a rubber duck in grand fashion, and then…

Oh.

He was not sure why the final image startled him so much. It wasn’t particularly different in kind from any of the others that preceded it. In fact it was every bit as ridiculous. Grayson had drawn Nightwing and Robin, but he’d drawn them both as birds, perched together on the branch of a tree and looking down on a scene in which two worms, helpfully labeled “Joker” and “Riddler,” appeared to be engaged in an insult battle. Beneath the picture Grayson had scrawled, “The early birds get the worms – unfortunately.”

And beneath that he’d written, “Quality time with my fave little bird.” This was followed by a smiley face.

Damian sat and stared down at the picture. He felt strangely tempted to snap a photo, but resisted the urge.

It was the last thing Grayson had drawn in this book, and Damian had no doubt that this was the image West had intended for him to see. He was not at all certain how to feel about that, or at least, he did not particularly want to think about it. But clearly something would have to be done. Damian did not like leaving a debt unpaid.

Eyes fixed on that smiley face, he considered the problem. Although West was obviously in need of money, it was equally obvious that he would not accept it. Damian’s broken leg would prevent him from being any help to the Flash in the field. But perhaps he could –

West had stepped out several times over the course of the evening to act as “the Flash elevator” (a name he insisted on repeating), and he’d indicated that he expected to continue doing so throughout the weekend. Damian still thought it was patently absurd that the apartment complex’s owners apparently could not be bothered to keep their property in decent repair. Park had assured him that it was worse than absurd, but unfortunately her investigation was currently somewhat stymied as the management company had sued Channel 4 to keep their records out of the public press. She fully expected to win the case, but there would certainly be an appeal, and all of that would take time.

Damian did not have any particular pull with any Kansas judges, which was likely for the best. But perhaps he could do something about the more immediate problem…

West, after all, was the one who insisted on referring to him as Draco Malfoy. Just this once, perhaps Malfoy had the right idea.

He set the sketchbook carefully aside on the nightstand and reached for his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Damian spent the last two weeks religiously watching the news from Keystone. Because…he wanted to get another perspective of the news. There was definitely no other reason. And he most certainly did not run a full background check on Linda Jasmine Park. But if he _had_, that would only be prudent.
> 
> Wally’s description of Linda as the “terror of snake cultists everywhere” is a reference to that time she defeated Kobra while Wally was stuck in the Speed Force, and the fact that Kobra declared that she was his archenemy because he couldn’t stand the idea of being defeated by a woman.
> 
> There’s a running gag in the comics where Linda’s dad always wants to talk investment portfolios, and Wally always conveniently has to dash off and deal with some supervillain before they can really get into it.
> 
> _“I told him we’d have a Bat in town and he’s got a healthy instinct for self-preservation.”_ This is, of course, the Damian-approved version of the story. What Wally _actually_ told Captain Cold is that he needed a weekend off because Robin was going to be staying with them and the kid was recovering from a pretty epic beating at the hands of the mob and also, you know, an entire lifetime of torture and being trained as an assassin, and Wally was hoping maybe he could convince the kid to have some fun this weekend. And Len, who has a massive soft spot for kids that he will never admit to out loud, found he had better things to do this weekend, and what do you know, so did all the other Rogues. What a strange coincidence.
> 
> Green River is a lime-flavored pop (we don’t call it soda in the Midwest, Damian!) made in Iowa.
> 
> Wally absolutely had Dick’s permission to share his sketchbook with Damian, but of course he couldn’t say that. Damian’s a Bat – he needs the thrill of secrets and discovery.


End file.
